


Holding On To You

by orphan_account



Category: Wet Hot American Summer (2001), Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (TV)
Genre: AU, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Segments, elapsed time, hand holding, honestly self-indulgent fluff, like the most innocent kisses you can imagine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 08:10:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7794052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Ben and McKinley meet when they're about 10 years old, when Susie and Coop date briefly. Just a handful of snippets of them being fluffy dorks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding On To You

**Author's Note:**

> I SPENT WAY TOO LONG ON THIS AND AM TOO SLEEPY TO EDIT IT I'M SO SORRY. So if you see any mistakes, please point them out. I love to fix things. Also, please enjoy! Your feedback is my lifeblood, so leave me a kudos and a comment!

**i.**

 

When Susie tells Ben that she’s dating Coop, he smiles. Mostly because he doesn’t know what else to do, but it seems like the right course of action. His best friend just told him that she’s dating somebody, and Ben, logically, should be happy for her. It’s like when his mom got him a cat after his dad died and waited until Ben smiled. (Ben did smile, but not because of the cat. He doesn’t really like the cat, nor does the cat really like him.) Susie doesn’t stop there, though. She never does.

“And you have to come along on our date,” she says, poking him in the shoulder. Ben nearly drops the glitter glue he’d been using on his popsicle stick sculpture.

“What?” he frowns, “Why?”

“Because,” Susie says, looking up at Ben with That Look, the one that means she’s about to explain something Very Important and he should Listen. “Being alone with a boy is…” she trails off, looking around at the obviously disinterested fellow campers, and drops her voice lower. “Scandalous.”

Ben has to stop for a moment to think what “scandalous” means, but it sounds pretty serious. He sighs, deflating.

“Alright,” he agrees. When Susie hugs him, tiny arms wrapping around his shoulders, he does manage a smile— and a real one, at that.

  
  


**ii.**

 

Ben finds it hard to smile when he realizes the extent of what this entails. Not only had Susie roped him into coming along, but it seems that Coop had the same idea of bringing along a backup buddy to make things less awkward. But, because it’s Coop and Susie, it all ended up being a lot more awkward regardless of what measures were taken. 

Ben stares at the floppy-haired boy standing across from him in the middle of the field, Coop beside him, and Susie beside Ben. The boy’s shirt is grass-stained, and there’s mud caked onto his Converse sneakers, socks slipping down skinny ankles. He stands there, arms crossed, looking bored. 

“Ben, this is McKinley, and he’s your date,” Susie says matter-of-factly. 

“What—” Ben asks, but it’s clearly too late. Suddenly Coop is pushing McKinley towards Ben, and Susie goes to stand next to Coop. “Why— McKinley’s a  _ boy, _ ” Ben whines. Next to him, he feels eyes trained on him.

“That doesn’t matter, you’re just pretending,” Susie says.

“Besides,” Coop shrugs, slipping his hand into Susie’s. “McKinley said he likes boys.”

Ben doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone fling themselves at another person so quickly or with such dedication. Coop is on his back in under a second, and McKinley and him wrestle for a moment, but it looks mostly like elbows and flailing. 

“I told you not to tell anybody!” McKinley yells, voice shrill.

Coop can only repeat, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” over and over while covering his face until McKinley seems satisfied, and rolls off of him. He stands, but looks no happier, and there’s a new mess of grass stains on his side. 

Ben and Susie exchange glances, and he can feel the intensity of her glare growing, which spurs him into action. She wants him to fix this. In a moment of sheer panic, he reaches for McKinley’s hand and blurts out, “It’s okay, I like boys, too.” McKinley freezes, turns his head slowly at Ben, and stares at him with wide eyes.

“Liar!” McKinley shouts, wrenching his hand out of Ben’s before storming off. 

Ben knows he’s not supposed to use this word, but, well, he feels like  _ shit _ . When he looks over at Coop, he can tell the other boy is pretty much on the same page. Susie, however, only stands there with a scowl. In her eyes, Ben has not fixed this at all. With one look from her, he sighs out, “ _ Fine, _ ” and trudges off.

 

**iii.**

 

He finds McKinley sitting by the empty soccer nets twenty minutes later, kneels curled up to his chest, face buried in his arms that rest on top. Ben pokes him with an orange-flavored ice pop. 

“Go away, Coop,” McKinley huffs.

“It’s Ben.”

McKinley whips his head up, glaring at him. “Go away,  _ Be— _ ” he stops mid-sentence to stare at the extended ice pop. “Is that for me?” McKinley looks up at Ben with suddenly hopeful eyes. Coop hadn’t been lying when he’d said that McKinley would never turn down an orange ice pop, but, to be fair, Ben isn’t sure Coop is capable of lying at all. Which is why they’re in the middle of this problem in the first place. 

Ben nods. “Yeah,” he smiles. “I even had Beth cut the top off for you.” McKinley snatches it and starts gnashing on it immediately. In between of mouthfuls of crunchy, orange-flavored ice, Ben manages to convince McKinley to let him sit down.

“Thanks,” McKinley mumbles.

Ben just nods. “It’s okay if you like boys,” he shrugs. McKinley freezes. “I mean! I—” Ben falters, unsure of where he’s going with this. His chest feels tight, and he’s terrified that McKinley will bolt again. He’s not sure he’d be able to catch him. Ben doesn’t like running unless it’s for capture the flag. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends,” he opts for. “Besides, if Susie and Coop are gonna be together all the time, then we’ll probably end up seeing each other, and I think you’re pretty cool.”

McKinley doesn’t answer, and Ben doesn’t push him to. Mostly because he doesn’t know what else to say. They sit in silence for a minute before, finally, he asks Ben, “Do you really like boys, too?”

Now it’s Ben’s turn to freeze. He scratches at his elbow and his heart beats a little faster. Suddenly the grass becomes very interesting, and he starts plucking pieces of it with great fervor. Ben shrugs, then shrugs again, and then kinda wiggles where he’s sitting. “I dunno,” he mutters. He’s not sure why he says it. Ben’s not sure of a lot of things, apparently.

McKinley, thankfully, bumps shoulders with Ben, and says, “That’s okay.”

Ben looks up at him and really  _ looks _ this time; big hazel eyes, pursed lips, black hair flopped unevenly onto one side of his face. The first word that comes to mind is  _ cute, _ but Ben swallows it down with a smile. It doesn’t help when McKinley decides to match his smile, face lighting up for the first time since they met.

 

**iv.**

 

“This is  _ stupid, _ ” McKinley whines. Every step he takes is exaggerated to look like it physically pains him. A few days after their initial meeting, Ben and McKinley had been dragged along by Susie and Coop to go pick flowers in the field next to the lakefront. Ben didn’t have much opposition to it, but McKinley was acting like if he had to pick another daisy, he was going to literally drop dead. “Coop, can’t we go play soccer or something? I wanna play soccer.”

“Shut up, I’m on a  _ date, _ ” Coop shoots back from over his shoulder. He and Susie are a few feet ahead, hands clasped together, pockets stuffed with flowers and weeds.

“Yeah, he’s on a  _ date _ with  _ me, _ ” Susie adds in. She tucks some purple flower behind Coop’s ear, and they giggle for seemingly no reason. McKinley lets out a frustrated groan, on the verge of what appears to be a meltdown, so Ben does the first thing that comes to mind: he grabs McKinley’s hand and tugs him aside.

“I’ll play soccer with you,” he whispers, stealing a cautious glance at Susie and Coop. In doing so, he misses McKinley’s pointed look at their joined hands, which lasts only a moment before he breaks out into a grin.

“Really?” He squeezes Ben’s hand.

Ben forgets entirely that he, firstly,  _ hates _ soccer, and, secondly, cannot play soccer. He nods eagerly, fanning the flames of McKinley’s smile each passing second. “Yeah! Yeah, totally.”

Thankfully, for whatever reason, McKinley seems to get distracted on the way there, and leads Ben onto the hiking trail instead. They walk the length of it, chatting, hands still clasped together. At one point, McKinley laughs at something Ben says, and Ben is seized with the sudden urge to hug McKinley. But he does not. Mostly because he has no idea  _ why _ he wants to hug McKinley. 

When they run into Susie and Coop later, Ben and McKinley pretend to listen to their  _ very interesting and important  _ story about how they picked at  _ least  _ 500 flowers. Underneath the mess hall table, Ben feels McKinley’s hand reach for his.

  
  


**v.**

 

The next “date” Ben and McKinley are dragged along on is a picnic approximately two days later, even though they’d made a point of hanging out each day in between. Coop’s mom had sent a snack box containing a package of Oreos and fruit snacks, so once they’d found some juice boxes, the four of them spread out a beach towel and thrown the food haphazardly on it. Coop and Susie immediately begin feeding each other fruit snacks, like Ben had seen adults do with things like grapes or cherries on television. It’s kinda gross.

And then there’s McKinley who tears open the Oreos, twists a cookie in half, licks them, and then sticks them to his chest like nipples. It’s possibly the stupidest thing Ben has ever seen and he kind of loves it. He starts giggling, and, unsurprisingly, so does Coop, and even Susie fights a snort of laughter before forcing out, “That’s  _ disgusting _ .” She clamps a hand over her mouth to stop more giggles.

In a very strange way that Ben can’t explain, he feels proud. It’s McKinley who’s garnering all the laughter, but there’s something in it all that Ben takes pride in, as if he were excited to say that, yes, this is his friend McKinley. His ridiculous McKinley. 

“Don’t make fun of my nipples,” he says, flinching when they suddenly fall off his chest and plop into his lap. This only spurs the four of them to laugh even harder, and Ben finds himself leaning into McKinley, beaming. The other boy looks over at Ben, eyes sparkling as if he’d done something important.

Eventually they all take to flopping on their backs to stare at clouds. Susie points out one that looks like a cat, but Coop argues looks like a penis. They’re both, somehow, right. Ben doesn’t really participate, preferring to just listen, especially when McKinley scoots closer to him and quietly grabs his hand. 

 

**vi.**

 

In Arts and Crafts, Ben makes McKinley a friendship bracelet. He weaves together red and blue and then a lighter blue, tiny hands tying it all together with triumph at the end, only to hold it up for inspection at the end. It’s perfect. He tucks it into his pocket and dashes off for theater activities with Susie.

After dinner with Susie and some of the other theater kids, Ben is right in assuming he’s being dragged along on another “date.”

“This one is very important, Ben,” Susie says. “It could make or break my relationship with Coop.”

Ben just nods, fingers playing with the friendship bracelet in his pocket. “Okay.”

She smiles and then leads him over towards Coop and McKinley’s table, wherein the four of them head out towards the lakefront. Halfway there though, Susie turns on her heel and puts her hand on Ben’s chest. “We’re going to go by ourselves now.”

“I—” Ben stammers, confused.

“Okay,” McKinley jumps in. He loops his arm through Ben’s. “Have fun being gross and making out.”

Susie makes a horrified face, and even Coop stutters a bit at hearing it out loud. McKinley leads Ben away towards the hiking trail they’d taken to walking on occasionally, slipping his hand into Ben’s once he’s certain nobody is around. 

 

“I made you something,” Ben says at some point. He listens to the crickets chirping, and watches a few lightning bugs flutter past the bushes. 

“Really?” McKinley asks, eyes wide with excitement. He stops walking and faces Ben with his whole body. “What is it? What is it?”

Ben reaches into his pocket and produces the bracelet. “Stick your hand out, I’ll tie it on you.” McKinley does as told, practically vibrating the whole time. As soon as Ben finishes knotting it, McKinley stares at it with awe, then suddenly steps in to hug Ben.

“It’s freakin’ awesome, I love it,” he beams, squeezing the life out of Ben who can barely hear McKinley over the sound of blood rushing around in his head. He pulls out just enough to kiss Ben on the cheek. Ben feels even happier than when he manages to get hot water in the showers, or when the Sally the theater counselor praises him for a job well done.

“Do you wanna be my boyfriend?” Ben blurts out before he can stop himself.

McKinley stares at him, a tense moment of silence, before nodding vigorously. “Yes,” he says, voice hilariously quiet with shock, despite the way he grips onto Ben. McKinley brims with excitement and sucks in a breath, pecking Ben quickly on the lips. 

Both boys stare at one another before dissolving into giggles.

 

**vii.**

  
Susie and Coop never end up kissing. In fact, Ben finds out just the next day, they broke up. For what it’s worth, Susie doesn’t seem all that affected, already pining after somebody new, whereas Coop had apparently taken up writing poetry to vent the “anguish of his heart.” Ben doesn’t know much about poetry, but from the scraps that McKinley sneaks to him, Coop could use some improvement. For starters, none of it even rhymes, which, really, what’s the point if it doesn’t rhyme?

McKinley apparently agrees, and so when Ben finds a taped together notebook page scribbled with a (rhyming) poem, he clutches it to his chest. Susie happens to walk in at that moment, and she demands to see what has Ben grinning so wildly. 

“McKinley and I are dating,” he says, lips pressed into a thin line. That stops her in her tracks, and for a moment her face twists with confusion, but then smooths out. She smiles, a real smile, eyes soft.

And then, in true Susie fashion, she barrels on to ask, “Does this mean I can come on your dates—”

“No,” Ben quickly says.


End file.
